Book of Enoch Bible Study Ep 7 - Why Enoch Was Taken (Chapter 12-15:1)

Enoch’s job as a scribe for THE MOST HIGH, the result of the fallen angels’ petition to GOD, Enoch’s vision of Heaven, and something I saw that may help explain what Enoch saw.

This is part 7 of our in-depth study of the Book of Enoch (also known as 1 Enoch). In this series, we’re reading through the entire Book of Enoch, providing commentary on each chapter, and discussing parallel Scriptures from the Bible.

Thanks for watching, and hope you enjoy.

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Timestamps:

0:00 Why Enoch was taken
1:54 Judgment on the fallen angels
5:32 The fallen angels petition for mercy
6:47 By the waters of Dan
11:05 Petition denied
12:31 Enoch’s vision of Heaven
13:41 “Scribe” in Paleo Hebrew
14:33 Understanding heavenly fire
19:36 Description of GOD’S throne

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Questions about Enoch?

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Transcript:

In the book of Genesis, Moses wrote that Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him. And in the book of Hebrews, we read that by faith, Enoch was translated, that he should not see death, and was not found, because God had translated him.

One question that comes up from reading those two verses is, “Why? Why was Enoch taken?” There are two men in the Bible who were taken to heaven by God our Father without ever having experienced death here on earth, and those two men were Enoch and Elijah.

Elijah was a prophet who was taken after he had finished his job, but Enoch was taken because he had a job to do. His assignment was to be a scribe, and to write down everything that he saw, so he could pass down the information to us today. We’re picking up today in the Book of Enoch, chapter 12, and this is after Father had pronounced His judgment on men and the angels.

So, after he had decided that He was going to flood the earth as a result of all of the sin that was going on at the time. Verse one, “Before these things, Enoch was hidden, and no one of the children of men knew where he was hidden, and where he abode, and what had become of him. And his activities had to do with the Watchers, and his days were with the holy ones. And I, Enoch, was blessing the Lord of Majesty, and the King of the Ages. And lo, the Watchers called me, Enoch the scribe, and said to me, ‘Enoch, thou scribe of righteousness, go declare to the Watchers of the heaven, who have left the high heaven, the holy eternal place, and have defiled themselves with women, and have done as the children of earth do, and have taken unto themselves wives, ye have wrought great destruction on the earth, and ye shall have no peace, nor forgiveness of sin. And inasmuch as they delight themselves in their children, the murder of their beloved ones shall they see, and over the destruction of their children shall they lament, and shall make supplication unto eternity, but mercy and peace shall you not attain.’”

Now this is a very severe judgment that God our Father is handing down to these angels. And we talked in previous episodes about why they were deserving of such a judgment, because they ruined His creation, and they ruined many people through the things that they came and taught. We talked about how the angels taught mankind to make war, and to make weapons, and how to do abortion.

And they also taught men about drugs. So, if you can think about all of the bad stuff that could possibly happen as a result of those things, that is what was going on in the days before the flood when Father handed this judgment down. So, at this point in the book of Enoch, that judgment has been set.

Our Father has made up his mind. And where we’re at here is the angels that are on Father’s side are telling Enoch that he is instructed to go to these fallen angels and deliver the message.

Chapter 13, verse 1, “And Enoch went and said, ‘Azazel, thou shalt have no peace. A severe sentence has gone forth against thee to put thee in bonds. And thou shalt have no toleration nor request granted to thee, because of the unrighteousness which thou hast taught, and because of all the works of godlessness and unrighteousness and sin which thou has shown to men.’ Then I went and spoke to them all together, and they were all afraid, and fear and trembling seized them.”

One thing to note here is that it’s not Enoch who’s afraid, even though he’s in front of these fallen angels, which are beings that are way more powerful than he is as someone who is flesh. But he’s not afraid. They’re the ones afraid because they are the ones that are under God’s judgment. So, something important to remember as we deal with spiritual attacks, that we are not to be afraid.

Verse 4, “And they besought me to draw up a petition for them, that they might find forgiveness, and to read their petition in the presence of the Lord of heaven. For from thenceforward they could not speak with him, nor lift up their eyes to heaven for shame of their sins for which they had been condemned. Then I wrote out their petition, and the prayer in regard to their spirits and their deeds individually, and in regard to their requests that they should have forgiveness and length of days. And I went off and sat at the waters of Dan, in the land of Dan, to the south of the west of Hermon. I read their petition till I fell asleep.”

We read earlier that no request would be granted to them, but here we see that those fallen angels are giving it a try anyway. And they are trying to use Enoch and his ability as a scribe to go and petition the Father on their behalf.

There’s one interesting thing about verse 7 which says – actually a couple of interesting things about verse 7. Enoch says that he went off and sat down at the waters of Dan in the land of Dan. So, number one, this shows that after Enoch was taken at the end of his 365 years on earth, presumably as we read in Genesis, that he was still able to come to earth and accomplish what God sent him to do. And we’re going to see a few more instances of that later on down the line in the book of Enoch, and once we get there, we’ll talk a little bit about the timing of all this, because that’s something that’s kind of interesting as well.

The second thing about this verse is he gives us a location and he talks about the land of Dan. Dan is one of the sons of Jacob. So, he is a tribe of Israel. And at the time that this was written, Dan had not yet been born. So how is it that the land was already the land of Dan? If you look at the words of Moses in Deuteronomy, he gives us a clue. And he says, “When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.”

So, Moses is talking about the time around the Tower of Babel, before Jacob, before even Abraham. And he’s saying that in those days, when Father apportioned the land to the various nations, he already had in mind the boundaries of the people of Israel. So, Dan was already on his mind.

Zebulun was on his mind. Manasseh, Gad, Judah, all of the tribes of Israel, he was thinking about them from the very beginning. That’s something that we also see here in the book of Enoch and it’s kind of a cool correlation to the words of Moses in Deuteronomy. So, Enoch is sitting at the waters of Dan and he is reading aloud this petition that he just wrote out on behalf of the fallen angels. And now we’re going to going to see what Father thinks of this petition of theirs.

Verse 8, “And behold, a dream came to me, and visions fell down upon me. And I saw visions of chastisement. And a voice came bidding me I tell it to the sons of heaven, and reprimand them. And when I awaked, I came unto them, and they were all sitting gathered together, weeping in Abelsjail, which is between Lebanon and Seneser, with their faces covered. And I recounted before them all the visions which I had seen in sleep. And I began to speak the words of righteousness, and to reprimand the heavenly Watchers.”

Chapter 14, “The book of the words of righteousness, and of the reprimand of the eternal Watchers, in accordance with the command of the Holy Great One in that vision. I saw in my sleep what I will now say with a tongue of flesh, and with the breath of my mouth, which the Great One has given to men to converse therewith, and understand with the heart. As He has created, and given to man, the power of understanding the word of wisdom, so hath He created me also, and given me the power of reprimanding the Watchers, the children of heaven. I wrote out your petition, and in my vision, it appeared thus, that your petition will not be granted unto you throughout all the days of eternity, and that judgment has been finally passed upon you. Yea, your petition will not be granted unto you, and from henceforth you shall not ascend into heaven unto all eternity, and in bonds of the earth the decree has gone forth to bind you for all the days of the world.”

“And that previously you shall have seen the destruction of your beloved sons, and you shall have no pleasure in them, but they shall fall before you by the sword. And your petition on their behalf shall not be granted, nor yet on your own, even though you weep and pray, and speak all the words contained in the writing which I have written.”

The final outcome here is that any petition that these fallen angels make of God our Father is not going to be granted. And in the next part of the Book of Enoch, he’s going to describe what he saw as part of receiving this answer to their petition.

In verse 8 he says, “And the vision was shown to me thus. Behold, in the vision clouds invited me, and a mist summoned me. And the course of the stars and the lightnings sped and hastened me, and the winds in the vision caused me to fly, and lifted me upward, and bore me into heaven. And I went in till I drew nigh to a wall which is built of crystals, and surrounded by tongues of fire. And it began to affright me. And I went into the tongues of fire, and drew nigh to a large house which was built of crystals. And the walls of the house were like a tessellated floor made of crystals, and its groundwork was of crystal.”

Enoch had the great and beautiful opportunity and task of trying to write down and explain things for us that most of us will never ever, ever see, and that most of us can barely even comprehend because the things in heaven are so outside of the realm of what we’re used to. And we see that when other prophets try to describe heavenly things. You’ll see it in the book of Ezekiel when he talks about the throne of God and the wheels of the angels.

So, we’re going to run into some terminology that maybe we’re not familiar with, and that doesn’t make a ton of sense, and I don’t know how much help I will be when it comes to those things. But there is one thing that I can help clear up, and that is the issue of fire.

A lot of the descriptions of heaven have to do with fire. Tongues of fire, fiery cherubim, doors blazing with fire, as you’ll see very shortly. And it’s important to note that at the time, the writers of the Bible, and at the time that Enoch was writing, we didn’t have lights and electricity as we have today. So, if something was bright and light, and it wasn’t the sun, you would compare it to a fire.

And in those days, people would understand in that perspective. Sometimes the word “fire,” when it’s describing things that are in the spirit or in heaven, sometimes it literally means fire. So, something hot that you can light a match and cause a fire.

But in a lot of cases, it is speaking of a light that can be likened to fire, and that is hard to explain otherwise. Because one very important characteristic of fire is that it’s constantly moving. Now I said that I could help explain some of these things, and that’s because of something that I saw.

And that is, I was told along with two other people – this was back in around 2004. We were each told separately that we’re going to see an angel. And after I forgot that I was told that, the three of us were together. And the three of us never hung out, by the way.

We were all together in my apartment and there was a person who was in the bathroom, who kind of started screaming our names. And so, I ran to the bathroom, and I looked out the window at what my friend was looking at. And there was something in the sky. The best way that I could describe it is it was a light that was blooming. But at the same time, it was folding into itself.

And it was constantly moving, constantly blooming, and constantly folding into itself. And when it wasn’t there anymore, it just wasn’t there. Like you couldn’t pinpoint a second where it left. It just was gone. But it was there for a good amount of time. And nobody said a word. We were all just tripping out on what the heck was that. Some sort of light that was like alive. And it was, it wasn’t spread out throughout the whole sky. It was like it had definite shape to it.

But the shapes kept – the shape of it kept like shifting into itself. And then we remembered that we had each been told that we would see an angel. So, I tell you all of that, because when we read the Book of Enoch, and when we read certain visions in the Bible, and we come across the word “fire,” and it’s clearly not talking about the kind of fire that will burn you, just think of a light that appears to be alive and moves kind of like fire, but like fire from another dimension. That is my best explanation for what I saw and for what I believe a lot of what Enoch and the prophets talk about.

Okay. So, continuing with verse 11, Enoch is talking about this house that he runs into in heaven. And he says, “Its ceiling was like the path of the stars and the lightnings, and between them were fiery cherubim, and their heaven was clear as water. A flaming fire surrounded the walls and its portals,” its gates or its doors in other words, “blazed with fire.”

“And I entered into that house, and it was hot as fire and cold as ice. There were no delights of life therein. Fear covered me, and trembling got hold upon me. And as I quaked and trembled, I fell upon my face. And I beheld a vision, and lo, there was a second house, greater than the former, and the entire portal stood open before me, and it was built of flames of fire.”

“And in every respect, it so excelled in splendor and magnificence and extent that I cannot describe to you its splendor and its extent. And its floor was of fire, and above it were lightnings and the path of the stars, and its ceiling also was flaming fire. And I looked and saw therein a lofty throne. Its appearance was as crystal, and the wheels thereof as the shining sun. And there was the vision of cherubim. And from underneath the throne came streams of flaming fire, so that I could not look thereon.”

“And the Great Glory sat thereon. And His raiment shone more brightly than the sun, and was whiter than any snow. None of the angels could enter and could behold his face by reason of the magnificence and glory, and no flesh could behold Him.”

“The flaming fire was round about him, and a great fire stood before Him, and none around could draw nigh Him. Ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him, yet He needed no counselor. And the most holy ones who were nigh to him did not leave by night nor depart from Him.”

“And until then I had been prostrate on my face, trembling. And the Lord called me with His own mouth and said to me, ‘Come hither, Enoch, and hear My word.’ And one of the holy ones came to me and waked me, and He made me rise up and approach the door. And I bowed my face downwards. And He answered and said to me, and I heard His voice, ‘Fear not, Enoch, thou righteous man and scribe of righteousness. Approach hither and hear my voice.’”

(To be continued)

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Attribution: 

Content: written and created by Original Hebrew. 

Video: All film footage and film clips are from films believed to be in the public domain. All other footage is original. 

Music: All music is original. 

Sound Effects: original works, royalty free clips from purchased software, or public domain sounds from freesound.org. 

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